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Equal pay for equal work

The Williams sisters. (AP Photo/Tim Ireland)
Roar Pro
29th June, 2017
10

With Wimbledon just about underway, there always seems to be some controversy surrounding this, the most prestigious Grand Slam of them all.

The opening serve has come from former champion and tennis legend, John McEnroe, suggesting that while he has “great respect” for Serena Williams, the 23-time Grand Slam winner, and rates her “the best ever of her gender”, she would be “like 700 in the world” on the men’s circuit.

McEnroe’s assessment of Serena and her probable ranking in the men’s game again opens the question concerning the concept of equal remuneration.

At this year’s Wimbledon Championships, the winner of both the men’s singles and the women’s singles will walk away with a cool 2.2 million pounds each (2.85 million dollars), the runners-up, pocketing 1.1 million pounds each!

Superficially that seems fair enough, however, the men have to play the best of five sets, while the ladies only have to play the best of three sets.

Well here’s the rub. Looking at all the single’s finals played at Wimbledon, since 2000, the men’s final has taken an average time of 180 minutes to complete, with a total of 66 sets being played. On the other hand, the ladies final has taken an average time of 93 minutes to play, with a total number of 39 sets played.

In the 17 men’s finals played, only seven victories have been achieved in straight sets, 3-0, with Adelaide’s Lleyton Hewitt, claiming one of them with his 2002 victory over David Nalbandian 6-1, 6-3, 6-2.

As for the ladies, a remarkable 12 victories, out of the 17 contests, have been achieved with straight sets, 2-0, win. Serena Williams claimed five of these wins, while sister, Venus, has three

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Taking into account revenue raised from television rights and advertising, in particular, it would be logical to think that the longer a match goes, the more revenue raised.

In today’s world of sexual equality, and the concept of equal pay for equal work performed, it would appear, from the Wimbledon tennis statistics, that the ladies are well and truly being adequately recompensed for the job that they are doing.

They are receiving a similar amount to the guys, and performing for approximately half the time that they do!

What do you think, Roarers? Do we need to adjust the pay rate or should we leave as is?

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